AMSTERDAM, The Netherlands -- Tuesday, October 26, 2010 -- The Free
Technology Academy (FTA) and the Free Software Foundation (FSF)
announced today their partnership in the FTA's Associate Partner
Network. The Network aims to expand the availability of professional
educational courses and materials covering the concepts and applications of free software and free standards.

BOSTON, Massachusetts, USA -- Thursday, October 14, 2010 -- The Free Software Foundation (FSF) announced today that it has published an initial set of criteria for endorsing computers and other devices. The FSF seeks both to obtain feedback on the criteria, and raise interest in the program among hardware manufacturers. Ultimately, the FSF plans to promote an endorsement mark to be carried on products that the FSF endorses.

BOSTON, Massachusetts, USA -- Friday, October 8th, 2010 -- The Free Software Foundation (FSF) today issued a warning to consumers over Microsoft's upcoming Windows 7 Phone Series. The software release is backed by a reported 400 to 500 million dollar marketing campaign that aims to distract consumers from its history of abusive behavior, and recent actions as a patent troll: attacking free software based phones like Android.

Recently, in free software news, Richard Stallman protested representatives of the European Patent Office giving a presentation in Australia concerning software patents. Trisquel released their newest LTS version, codename: Taranis. The chief architect of Apple's compiler group answered a question about the upstream potential of their work on the GNU Compiler Collection.

Last week, we put out an action item asking people to write to the
USPTO, and explain to them why software should not be eligible for
patents under their forthcoming post-Bilski guidance. To answer the
call, you all sent in more than 450 letters, offering the USPTO all
kinds of legal and practical reasons why they should stop issuing
software patents. This is a tremendous response, and we're very
grateful to you all for participating. Thank you very much!

Following the Supreme Court's decision in Bilski v. Kappos, the
United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) plans to release new
guidance as to which patent applications will be accepted, and which
will not. As part of this process, they are seeking input from the
public about how that guidance should be structured.

As you likely heard on any number of news sites, Oracle has filed suit
against Google, claiming that Android infringes some of its Java-related copyrights and patents.
Too little information is available
about the copyright infringement claim to say much about it yet; we
expect we'll learn more as the case proceeds. But nobody deserves to
be the victim of software patent aggression, and Oracle is wrong to
use its patents to attack Android.

A month ago, we published a statement against
ACTA and asked
for your signatures in support. Over 3,000 of you joined us in calling
on ACTA negotiators to either dramatically change the agreement or
drop it all together.

An iPhone port of GNU Go is currently being distributed through Apple's App Store. However, this distribution is not in compliance with the GNU GPL. The primary problem is that Apple imposes numerous legal restrictions on use and distribution of GNU Go through the iTunes Store Terms of Service, which is forbidden by section 6 of GPLv2. So today we have written to Apple and asked them to come into compliance. We would be happy to see Apple distribute these programs under the GPL's terms, but unfortunately, it seems much more likely that they'll simply make the problem go away by removing GNU Go from the App Store.

New documentary film "Patent Absurdity" is set to expose how the judicial activism that led to the patenting of software has broken the US patent system's promise of promoting the progress of science and useful arts